London-based architectural and urban design firm ecoLogicStudio has unveiled a large-scale “urban curtain” designed to fight climate change. “Photo.Synth.Etica” was developed in collaboration with Climate-KIC, the most prominent climate innovation initiative from the European Union, to “accelerate solutions to global climate change.”

Photo.Synth.Etica, currently on display at the Printworks Building in Ireland’s Dublin Castle, captures and stores one kilogram of CO2 per day, the equivalent to that of 20 large trees.

The prototype is composed of 16 modules measuring 2 x 7 meters, covering the first and second floor of the historic building, recently featured in our architectural guide to Dublin. Each module functions as a photobioreactor: “a digitally designed and custom-made bioplastic container that utilizes daylight to feed the living micro-algal cultures and releases luminescent shades at night.”

The filtration process involved urban air introduced to the bottom of the façade, causing air bubbles to rise through the watery medium within the bioplastic. CO2 and other pollutants are captured and stored in the algae, and grow into biomass. The biomass can be harvested and used in the production of bioplastic, which is in turn used as the main building material of the photobioreactors themselves. The process culminates with freshly-filtered oxygen released from the top of each façade unit.

The message is one of spatial convergence and connectivity between the financial marketplace of cyberspace and the relative organic molecular transactions in the biosphere.– Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto, Founders, ecoLogicStudio

The innovative filtration-come-shading system is adaptable into existing and newly-designed buildings, taking a strong position within visions of futuristic architecture dominated by smart cities, smart homes, and robotic factories.

Photo.Synth.Etica suggests that, in the Anthropocene age, a non-anthropocentric mode of reasoning, and deploying cutting-edge technologies based on digital and biological intelligence, could be at the core of urban design and stimulate our collective sensibility to recognise patterns of reasoning across disciplines, materialities and technological regimes.– Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto, Founders, ecoLogicStudio